Wednesday, 23 January 2013

There has been a lot of buzz floating around about Facebook's new search being launched called Facebook Graph. This will be using algorithms based on what is in Facebook, not the usual web page based content we are all used too.  I guess you could call this more of a Social Media Engine rather than a Search Engine.
I have also seen much talk about new ways for people to play dirty with this, just as the blackhat's used to do before Panda. I'm sure many businesses will get spammed about services promising followers and likes (I hate people who offer this on Twitter), and some bad players will run off with unsuspecting money for the people who will fall for this.
Any social media expert will tell you the basic rules to this new engine.
  • Keep your Facebook Page "About Us" information updated
  • If you advertise with Facebook, do it more! (no, they didn't pay me to say this, but they should!)
  • Post, Post, Post! Relevant material full of healthy keywords
  • Keep your community engaged. People will Like and Follow you if the content is interesting.
I also recommend if you are a business, developer or social media expert to sign up for the beta over at their nicely designed launch page https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch

See you in the search!

 
 

Tuesday, 22 January 2013
I know this is completely unrelated to Web Design or anything else I talk about, but I wanted to share this and have it be another hit on people's searches.

I have recently had troubles with my beautiful AMD XFX 7990 Card (yes, I do my design on a gaming machine!) Where the sound would cut out when watching media player files, movies, YouTube and other HTML5/Flash Players. The sound would be fine while gaming.

It took a while to find the fix, and it was blamed on AMD's catalyst driver, which was the case. The quick fix that was all over the web was to go into the LCD Panels and turn LCD Overdrive on and off again to fix the problem. This became tedious and I would have to do this every time I boot my computer. And even worse it would completely kill the sound output from the HDMI when the computer sat idle for a while, while the TV was on another input. The driver wouldn't even load the sound anymore and I would have to reboot.

I reached out to XFX Support, who tried, but they wouldn't grasp the fact that the manufacture of their chip was releasing a shitty driver and they hadn't placed a fix for it yet. After ignoring their option to do an RMA, I hunted and hunted.

Finally with some luck, I found the solution! A simple registry edit fixed it all. Even after recently updating to the v13 driver, I had to go back and do the fix again, but it still worked! I would write a script to fix this for you, but you have to find it by the identifier of the hardware, so it would be unique for everyone.

Easiest way to do it, is open the registry editor (Start - Run - regedit) and then search for PP_SclkDeepSleepDisable

Once you find this, it should be in a folder like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\XXXXX\0000\
Note: XXXXX is your device number

To make sure you are in the right spot, you first have to be in the 0000 folder and look for AdapterDesc, here you should see your adapters description (AMD Radeon 79XX).

Edit the DWORD value for the PP_SclkDeepSleepDisable from 0 to 1. This will fix your problems! Now you can watch your videos right away without being pissed off at your card.
Friday, 18 January 2013

More are more developers are finding themselves concentrating more on the responsiveness of a website than anything else, making it look as perfect as possible in all resolutions.

With the release of Joomla 3 and many template developers adding in the right framework to make that portrait perfect site, it is becoming more difficult to find the modules and plugins that work with that responsiveness.

I have recently had to do a hunt myself for an ideal slider to go with a site I was working on, and did not have all the time to code one from scratch. At this point I noticed the usual fallback one I use did not work with the responsive script I was working with. At this point, size did matter.

So after a hunt I have put together a list not only for myself, but the community of sliders that worked well for me on sites that required a nice mobile look to them.

1) Code7 Responsive Slider (Free)  - http://www.code7dev.co.uk/responsive-slider-module

 
  
2) WS-FlexSlider ($15) - http://goo.gl/xGQRl

 
 
 
3) JoomSpirit JS-FlexSlider (Free) - http://goo.gl/cnBLA
 

 
 
4) Avatar Slide Galleria (Free & Paid) - http://goo.gl/J8R5E
 

 
 

5) SJ Sobipro Slideshow ($12.50) - http://goo.gl/8nKL8